Conversational Data Analysis as an Altered State of Consciousness

Norman Nie was nothing if not candid as to the reasons why I was chosen to speak to you this evening. He said, We want somebody who doesn\u27t know a bit from a bite, but who has had a lot of experience with SCSS. I qualify on both counts. Biting is something you do to a bullet, and bit is what\u27s left over in the paycheck after the government takes its taxes away. As for the use of SCSS I\u27ve done most of a book relying solely on my portable T1 terminal and, with some risk of having a giant skyhook come down and removing me from the scene tonight, I think I can say I have analyzed more data with it than Norman has

Images of God in the Movies

In the following essay I identify some of the images of God I have found in contemporary, popular movies. Some of these are visual images of God, while others are conceptions of what God expects from us or for us. I conclude that the God of the movies is both gentle and tough, merciful and stern, caring and just. Movies may emphasize the merciful, but the images of God include both mercy and justice and the emphasis mirrors the emphasis on mercy in our own culture. We are, on the whole, optimists, and the images of God in the movies support such optimism

The Demographic Imperative in Religious Change in the United States

U.S. Protestants are less likely to belong to “mainline” denominations and more likely to belong to “conservative” ones than used to be the case. Evidence from the General Social Survey indicates that higher fertility and earlier childbearing among women from conservative denominations explains 76% of the observed trend for cohorts born between 1903 and 1973: conservative denominations have grown their own. Mainline decline would have slowed in recent cohorts, but a drop‐off in conversions from conservative to mainline denominations prolonged the decline. A recent rise in apostasy added a few percentage points to mainline decline. Conversions from mainline to conservative denominations have not changed, so they played no role in the restructuring

Reprogramming human T cell function and specificity with non-viral genome targeting.

Decades of work have aimed to genetically reprogram T cells for therapeutic purposes1,2 using recombinant viral vectors, which do not target transgenes to specific genomic sites3,4. The need for viral vectors has slowed down research and clinical use as their manufacturing and testing is lengthy and expensive. Genome editing brought the promise of specific and efficient insertion of large transgenes into target cells using homology-directed repair5,6. Here we developed a CRISPR-Cas9 genome-targeting system that does not require viral vectors, allowing rapid and efficient insertion of large DNA sequences (greater than one kilobase) at specific sites in the genomes of primary human T cells, while preserving cell viability and function. This permits individual or multiplexed modification of endogenous genes. First, we applied this strategy to correct a pathogenic IL2RA mutation in cells from patients with monogenic autoimmune disease, and demonstrate improved signalling function. Second, we replaced the endogenous T cell receptor (TCR) locus with a new TCR that redirected T cells to a cancer antigen. The resulting TCR-engineered T cells specifically recognized tumour antigens and mounted productive anti-tumour cell responses in vitro and in vivo. Together, these studies provide preclinical evidence that non-viral genome targeting can enable rapid and flexible experimental manipulation and therapeutic engineering of primary human immune cells